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Court Overturns 9/11 Suspect's Conviction

Posted on: Thursday, 4 March 2004, 06:00 CST

A German court on Thursday overturned the world's only conviction for the Sept. 11 attacks and ordered a retrial for a Moroccan found guilty last year of aiding the Hamburg cell of suicide hijackers.

Mounir el Motassadeq's conviction on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization was flawed because the lower court failed to properly consider the absence of evidence from a key witness who is in U.S. custody, the Federal Criminal Court ruled. The jailed 29-year-old's case was sent back to court in Hamburg.

"The case is to be sent back to another panel of judges at the Hamburg court for a new trial and decision," Presiding Judge Klaus Tolksdorf said in reading the verdict.

But he said, "The defendant el Motassadeq is certainly far removed from being clear of suspicion."

El Motassadeq is serving a 15-year prison sentence after a Hamburg court convicted him in February 2003 of giving logistical support to the Hamburg-based al-Qaida cell that included Sept. 11 suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah.

An electrical engineering student in Hamburg, el Motassadeq has denied the charges.

His lawyers argued he was denied a fair trial because the United States refused to allow testimony by Ramzi Binalshibh, thought to be the Hamburg cell's key contact with al-Qaida.

Binalshibh was captured in Pakistan on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and is in secret U.S. custody.

The U.S. Justice Department has told the Hamburg court that Binalshibh is "not available." The German government refused to turn over transcripts of his interrogations, saying they had been provided by the United States for intelligence purposes only.

El Motassadeq acknowledges knowing the hijackers, but denies that he knew anything of their plans and maintains that Binalshibh could confirm it. The Moroccan's lawyers say the court should have pressed the matter further before giving him the maximum sentence.

"Without this key witness, the rest of the evidence is not sufficient for a conviction," defense attorney Josef Graessle-Muenscher said.

Thursday's ruling is a new setback for German prosecutors after the Hamburg court last month acquitted el Motassadeq's friend Abdelghani Mzoudi of identical charges for lack of evidence.

Binalshibh's absence was a factor in that decision, but Judge Tolksdorf said Mzoudi's acquittal did not influence the appeal proceedings.

In convicting el Motassadeq, the Hamburg court cited a mosaic of evidence that included his payment of tuition and rent for other cell members. That helped them maintain appearances of a normal student life in the city while plotting the attacks, the court said.

Federal prosecutors had wanted to see el Motassadeq's conviction confirmed, insisting that the Hamburg court made every effort to get Binalshibh's testimony. But experts believe a retrial is likely after critical questioning by the appeals judges at a January hearing.

El Motassadeq's lawyers also argued that al-Qaida hatched the Sept. 11 plot in Afghanistan and the hijackers trained to fly in the United States, so Atta's group did not constitute a German-based terrorist organization under laws in force at the time.

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